Near the town of Gap, in the south-eastern corner of France, there is a little hamlet, half buried in trees, and surrounded with green and flowery meadows. Above it rise the great Alps, with their snow-covered tops and wild precipices. The river Durance rushes down from the mountains and passes near the village. It must be a beautiful place, and, perhaps, but little altered since the time of which I am going to tell you, 400 years ago. At that time there rose above the cottages a house, inhabited by the lord of the manor, a nobleman of the name of Farel. The little village is still called Les Farelles, and the remains of the old house, with its wide terrace and its orchard, are still there, overlooking the village below. The gentleman who lived there at the time of which I am speaking had a wife, five sons, and one daughter. The five boys were called Daniel, John James, Claude, William, and Walter. William, who appears to have been the youngest but one, was born in the year 1489. You may think from the description I have given you, that William’s birthplace was a quiet, peaceful little nook, to which trouble and tumult could scarcely find their way; but in that year (1489) there was anything but peace and quiet in those mountain villages of Dauphiny! I must tell you that for many hundreds of years there had been some poor village people living amongst the Alps, who still held fast, in a great measure, to the word of God, who met together to worship Him in a simple, godly manner, who had none other gods but Him— who refused to worship the bread or the images, which were adored in every country round, and who trusted to the Lord Jesus Christ alone to save them from all their sins. These poor people, who are called the Waldenses, had often been persecuted by the Pope of Rome, and those who belonged to him.
Two years before William Farel was born the Pope, Innocent VIII, sent forth a command that the little remnant of these godly people should be hunted down and destroyed. “To arms!” he said, “and trample these heretics under foot as venomous serpents.”
Thus it was, that in the years 1488 and 1489, the homes of Christ’s little flock were attacked by an army of 18,000 men, headed by the Pope’s legate. The poor people fled, and took refuge in caves and in clefts of the rocks, but were followed by the soldiers from one hiding place to another. Every valley, every wood, was searched, and everywhere were the dead bodies of the saints left to bear witness to the awful wickedness of him who called himself the Vicar of Christ upon earth. All this was going on around the village of Les Farelles when William was born. His parents must have heard and seen many of these things. Do you think they began to doubt whether it was indeed the work of Christ that the Pope’s soldiers were doing? No; they had eyes but saw not, and ears but heard not, and hearts that did not understand. They would have thought anything right which the Pope commanded to be done, because he commanded it, and for no better reason. In this case, too, they had another, though not a better reason, for thinking it right that the Waldenses should be hunted like wild beasts and murdered without pity. The priests told them that all Waldenses were wizards and witches. They said that they met together by night on the Jews’ Sabbath, to worship the devil and commit every kind of wickedness. They said that the way they went to these meetings was by riding through the air on the backs of monsters, or sitting on a broom-stick made of birch wood; that they would thus travel through the air from the most distant places with the speed of lightning; that these prayers offered to the devil by the Waldenses were the cause of bad harvests, and of sickness and distress.
“My parents,” said William, “believed everything.” But for us it is difficult indeed to believe that such ignorance and folly ever existed. Yet there are many people even now who have just such a faith as the Farel’s. That is to say, they put the word of man in the place of the word of God, and call it faith to believe that which man has invented. There are thousands of people, for example, who still believe that a priest can forgive their sins, and that we need but to be baptized with water by a clergyman in order to be born again. It may appear less foolish to the mind of man, than to believe in witches riding through the air on broom-sticks; but in either case such folly is in the sight of God equally sinful. It is sinful especially in those who have the Bible, and can therefore know better. We may pity the Farel family, for to them the word of God was unknown, and they had but the word of man to guide them. They believed, therefore, but in man, not in God. The Lord Jesus has said, “Have faith in God.” This, and this only, is really faith.
William, too, believed everything. His parents were very careful to teach him to be religious. He learned to pray to so many saints and angels, that his mind became, as he tells us, a temple of idols, and that he was like a walking calendar of saints’ days and of fast days. He was taught, too, the wonderful histories of these saints—how S. Francis, by friendly conversation, persuaded a wolf in the woods to eat people no more; yet more, how he commanded the wolf to come into the church, and there, in the pulpit, before all the people, give him its paw as a sign that it thus promised obedience, and how it was a good wolf ever after. How S. Elizabeth was forbidden by her husband to give away so much bread and meat to the poor, but, being a saint, she continued to do so, and one day, meeting her husband as she went into the town with her cloak full of bread and meat, she told him she had got nothing but flowers; and when her husband looked into her cloak he saw nothing but lilies and roses, for God had changed the bread and meat into flowers, lest her husband should be angry.
Little William, who reasoned about things, must have been puzzled to know whether it was therefore right for wives to disobey their husbands, and whether it could be wrong to tell lies, since the saints set the example. He was told of many other saints’ stories without end; how they walked over the sea, preached to the birds and caterpillars, carried their heads about after they were beheaded, killed dragons, and saw visions. How some lived for years on the tops of pillars, others never washed themselves, out of self-denial, others allowed themselves to be eaten by vermin, and others mixed dirt with their food and water. Such was the education of poor little William, as far as we have any means of knowing what his parents taught him.
He learned to read when he was a very little boy, but he did not learn, alas, to read the Bible. It was a book neither he nor his parents ever beheld. “When I think,” he says, “what I myself have been, I am filled with horror, remembering the worship, the prayers, and the services which I offered up to crosses, and such like things, contrary to the commandment of God. Were it not that Satan had put out my eyes, what I saw and what I did was quite enough to convince me how far I was from the straight path. The first notable piece of idolatry which I remember to have committed, and the first pilgrimage I ever performed was to the holy cross which is on a mountain near Tallard. They told me it was made of the wood of the actual cross upon which Jesus Christ was crucified. It was an ash-colored wood, quite different from that of the cross which I afterward kissed and worshipped at Paris, in the place they call the 'Holy Chapel.' This, too, was said to be made of Christ’s cross, and so were several other crosses, but yet all were made of different kinds of wood. The cross of which I am telling you was adorned with copper. If the wood was holy, so was the copper, according to the priests, for they said it was made of the basin out of which the Lord washed the apostles’ feet. They told us, too, that, whenever this cross was carried away to another place, it always came back of itself, and that when there was going to be bad weather, it would tremble and shake. This happened specially to a small crucifix which was fastened to the cross, a crucifix so gaudily painted that it seemed to be made in mockery. 'This little crucifix,’ said the priest, 'casts forth sparks of fire, and if it did not do so everything upon the earth would be destroyed.'”
The father and mother of little William, who was then about seven years old, listened to all these wonders and firmly believed them. But the little boy seems, notwithstanding, to have had his wits about him in some degree. He showed, too, that he had already that love of reality, and dislike of all false appearances, which we find afterward so remarkable a part of his character. He tells us that as he and his parents were looking with adoration at the cross, a young woman came up, who seemed to be only thinking of the priest, and to take no notice of the cross; and the priest, too, seemed delighted to see her, and walked off with her into the chapel hard by, “Just,” said William, “as a young man might lead off a young woman to a dance.” Even then there seemed to William to be something wrong in the bold manners of the woman; “but,” he says, “we were all so blinded, we dared not give way to the thought that there could be anything there that was not good and holy.” There was one more sight that had yet to be seen at the foot of the holy cross; this was a man who served as a show, and was called “the priest’s sorcerer.” He was frightful to behold, his eyes covered with white scales. He stood there to back the priest in all the stories he told about the cross and the crucifix, for the priest said nobody could see the cross tremble, and the crucifix throw out sparks, except himself and the man with white eyes.
The Farels returned home, glad to have seen the wonderful cross, but little William had many thoughts about it, which he kept to himself. He did not the less believe all that his parents taught him, nor did he venture to think any of the priest’s stories could be false, but he felt perplexed and bewildered.
It has been a painful task to tell you this sad history of William’s childhood, and it will be a painful task also to tell you of many more things which he had to see and hear. But God desires that we should know these things in order to be warned by them. God wrote the dark, sad histories of Jeroboam, and of Ahab, and of Ahaz, that His people Israel might see what an evil thing and bitter it was to depart from God. The sins of the Jews and the sins of Christendom should serve as warnings to you and to me. I would have you to remark that in both cases the dark and evil days came, because men turned away from the pure word of God to the inventions of men, and in both cases the pastors and the teachers were the blind leaders of the blind; and into how deep a ditch do we find the leaders and the followers fallen at the time of which I am telling you!
“A wonderful and horrible thing,” said the Lord, speaking of Israel, “is committed in the land: the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means, and My people love to have it so.” And of Christendom the Lord foretold by His servant Paul, “The time will come when they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and be turned to fables.” And do not think that the days of danger are over. Do not think that there is no fear for you that you should thus be led by man rather than by God. Satan may look now more like an angel of light, but so much the worse for you, unless you are taught by God to know the voice of the Shepherd, and to distinguish it from the voice of Satan.
In the days of Farel, when Bibles were kept out of sight, Satan could by his servants teach sin and folly, without any need to mix up evil with good to disguise his work. Men did not know in the pitch darkness of those days that the most utter folly was untrue. But now, when you all have Bibles, Satan works in another way. He puts the good and evil together in a book—it may be in a hymn book or a sermon—so skillfully, and so smoothly that you will think it good, and beautiful, and wise, and only God can keep you from these traps and snares. Farel in later years wrote these words, which I would have you to remember as long as you live, “I pray all those who love Jesus Christ, who alone is the Truth, that they do not blame me if I refuse to put the most ancient and honored teachers in the same rank as the Holy Scriptures, and if, when I read their writings, I search diligently in the Scriptures to see whether they have told the truth or not. Far be it from me to contradict any great and holy teacher who speaks the truth; on the contrary, the smallest and meanest person, if he speaks the truth, ought not to be contradicted upon any account whatsoever. I only ask that the truth they speak should be manifestly proved and maintained by the Holy Scripture and maintained by us, because we find it there; for the Scripture is very sure, and says nothing but that which is true, and which everybody ought to receive and to hold fast; but every single thing which cannot be proved by Scripture has no weight, no place, no authority in the worship and service of God. Christ is the Truth; He alone is the One who ought to be listened to. We must not turn to look at any other, nor attend to what any man whatever may do and say, but follow Christ, and Christ only. And if we doubt whether anything we are told by men is really what Christ has said and commanded, we are to turn to the Holy Scriptures, which are the fountain-head, from which God intends we should draw forth all truth. We should find out there what Christ really did say, and according to that we should hold fast, believing it and doing it, without adding to it or diminishing from it, nor twisting it this way and that, to right or to left, but simply obeying it.” Well would it be if all people calling themselves Christians had walked by this rule!